John Glenn: 1st American to Orbit Earth, Oldest Man in Space John Glenn: 1st American to Orbit Earth, Oldest Man in Space By Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com Contributor | December 8, 2015 04:45pm ET MORE Editor's note: John Glenn, a legendary NASA astronaut and American hero, died on Dec. 8, 2016 at age 95. Read our full obituary here . More coverage: America's First Spaceship: Project Mercury (Infographic) The first American to orbit the Earth, John Glenn made history again when, at the age of 77, he became the oldest person to travel in space. But before he was nationally recognized as a hero, he had put his life on the line for his country many times. Born on July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio, John Herschel Glenn Jr., was the son of John and Teresa Sproat Glenn. While playing in the high school band, he met Anna Margaret Castor, and later married her. After graduation, he attended Muskingum College, where he attained a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Glenn entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program. He ultimately flew 59 combat missions in the Pacific during World War II. Astronaut John Glenn photographed in space by an automatic sequence motion picture camera during his historic orbital flight on "Friendship 7" on Feb. 20, 1962. Credit: NASA After the war ended, Glenn served as an instructor for advanced flight training at Corpus Christi, Texas. He went on to fly 90 missions in Korea, downing three MiGs during the his last nine days of combat. From there, Glenn attended Test Pilot School at the Naval Air Test Center in Maryland, then went on to serve as project officer on a number of aircraft. He attended classes at the University of Maryland for two and a half years while assigned to the Fighter Design Branch of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, the precursor to the Bureau of Naval Weapons. In July 1957, Glenn set a transcontinental speed record, flying from Los Angeles to New York in 3 hours 23 minutes. His was the first cross-country flight to average supersonic speed.

Glenn was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross six times, as well as a number of other honors for his military service. He and his wife have two children. Beyond the sky In April 1959, Glenn was selected as a Project Mercury astronaut. He became part of the Mercury Seven group, the first astronauts selected by NASA. Glenn served as backup astronaut to the first two Americans in space, Alan Shepard and Virgil "Gus" Grissom. [ Project Mercury: Photos of NASA's 1st Manned Spaceflights ] At the time, the United States was in the midst of a race with the Soviet Union to reach the stars. Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man launched into space on April 12, 1961, beating Alan Shepard by less than a month. Gagarin's craft took him in a full orbit around Earth, making him the first person to circle the planet, as well. [ Infographic: 1st American in Orbit: How NASA & John Glenn Made History ] On Feb. 20, 1962, the United States showed that it had the same mettle as its competition.

Previous flights into space by Shepard and Grissom had not traveled all the way around the planet. When Glenn blasted into space aboard Mercury's Friendship 7 capsule, he orbited Earth three times over the course of almost five hours, traveling faster than 17,000 mph. [ VIDEO: This is Friendship 7: America's 50th On-Orbit Anniversary ] But his journey was not without hazards . After the first orbit, a mechanical problem with the automatic control system required Glenn take manual control of the craft. Sensors also indicated that the heat shield, which would protect the astronaut from the lethal temperatures created upon re-entry to the atmosphere, was loose. To help protect him on his return to Earth, Glenn kept the retrorocket pack, which was designed to be jettisoned, in place. Follow-up examination of the control system revealed that the indicator had been incorrect. The shield was fine, but the experience was surely harrowing. [ PHOTOS: John Glenn, First American in Orbit ] An active retirement Glenn retired from the Marine Corps in 1965 as a colonel. He worked as a business executive for a decade before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1974.

The Ohio Democrat campaigned vigorously for funding for science, education, and space exploration. In 1984, he made a failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. He served as a senator until 1999. STS-95 crewmember, astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn. Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth and returned to space in 1998 aboard a Space Shuttle flight. Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz, Mark Sowa Despite his advancing age, Glenn was not yet finished with the space program. On Oct. 29, 1998, while still a senator, Glenn made history again when he rode the space shuttle Discovery to become the oldest space traveler. Over the course of nine days, the shuttle orbited Earth 134 times. Glenn served as payload specialist, participating in various experiments to test how his 77-year old body responded the weightless environment. The craft also carried the SPARTAN satellite to study solar wind, and hardware for an upcoming maintenance mission on the Hubble Space Telescope. In 2012, Glenn received the Presidential Medal of Freedom .

He was also on hand for the retirement of the space shuttle Discovery , though he criticized the demise of the shuttle program as delaying research. Although Glenn's second flight into space was completely different from his first, both were historic, record-setting missions. But most Americans will always remember him as the first American to orbit the Earth . —Nola Taylor Redd John Glenn orbits Earth, February 20, 1962 | EDN John Glenn orbits Earth, February 20, 1962 PRINT PDF EMAIL Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6), a human spaceflight mission conducted by NASA, launched on February 20, 1962, sending John Glenn into orbit. In doing so, Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. Glenn spent 4 hours and 56 minutes in flight in Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7 and orbited Earth three times. The mission had been delayed several times. NASA had hoped to send up Mercury 6’s Atlas #109-D launch vehicle soon after it arrived at Cape Canaveral on November 30, 1961, aiming to see one of its astronauts orbit in the same calendar year as the Soviets did.

But by early December it was apparent that the mission hardware would not be ready for launch until early 1962. The launch date was first announced as January 16, 1962, then postponed to January 23 because of problems with the Atlas rocket fuel tanks. That slipped to January 27 due to inclement weather. On January 27, 1962, Glenn was on board Mercury 6 and ready to launch, when the flight director called off the launch because of heavy overcast (cloud cover would have prevented the necessary photo coverage of the launch). The launch was then postponed until February 1, 1962, but when technicians began to fuel the Atlas on January 30, they discovered a fuel leak had soaked an internal insulation blanket between the fuel and oxidizer tanks of the rocket. A necessary two-week repair delay pushed the launch back to February 14, but, again, weather caused a further delay. February 20, 1962, become a favorable day to attempt a launch. Until this time, NASA had not attempted to orbit with a human onboard one of its crafts.

It’s most recent success was that of Mercury 5, which carried Enos, a chimpanzee, into orbit in November 1961. With the effects of orbital spaceflight unknown on humans, NASA sent Glenn up with an onboard medical kit consisting of morphine for pain relief, mephentermine sulfate to treat any shock symptoms, benzylamine hydrochloride to counter motion sickness, and racemic amphetamine sulfate, a stimulant. Glenn’s survival kit, intended to be used while he waited for recovery after splashdown, included desalter kits, dye marker, distress signal, signal mirrors, signal whistle, first aid kits, shark chaser, a PK-2 raft, survival rations, matches, and a radio transceiver. Among the things Glenn observed from orbit were a sunset over the Indian Ocean, a dust storm over Kano, Nigeria, and the outline of a city while sailing over Perth, Australia, where citizens had left their lights on for the astronaut. Friendship 7 (photo, right) experienced some minor issues in its near five hours in flight, including concerns with the heat shield and landing bag, which were later proven to be false and triggered due to a bad warning sensor.

Splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean occurred about 40 miles away from Friendship 7’s target. NASA calculations had not taken into account spacecraft weight loss due to use of onboard consumables, including fuel. Fortunately, a US destroyer was nearby and had the Friendship 7 out of the water in 17 minutes. Glenn’s only injury on the mission occurred when he was exiting the craft. When Glenn hit the hatch detonator plunger with the back of his hand, the detonator plunger recoiled and slightly cut the astronaut's knuckles through his glove. Friendship 7 is displayed at the National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC. Also see: This date in science: John Glenn first American to orbit Earth | Space | EarthSky This date in science: John Glenn first American to orbit Earth By EarthSky in Space | February 20, 2016 On February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. He made three turns around the planet before returning safely. February 20, 1962. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on this date.

He made three turns around the planet before returning safely in his space capsule, which was called Friendship 7. He followed two Russian cosmonauts in making this early orbit of our planet: Yuri Gagarin ( April 1961) and Gherman Titov (August 1961). While Glenn was in orbit, NASA controllers received an indication that the heat shield on his craft had come loose. They instructed Glenn not to jettison the rockets underneath the heat shield during re-entry, because the rockets might be able to hold the shield in place. Fortunately, the indication turned out to be a false alarm. Glenn returned to space at age 77 aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1998, making him the oldest person to fly in space. His mission’s primary scientific aim at that time was to study the effects of spaceflight on seniors. John Glenn climbs into the Friendship 7 spacecraft just before making his first trip into space on February 20, 1962. Photo via NASA John Glenn and Friendship 7 Here’s what John Glenn saw on February 20, 1962.

Just 5 minutes and 44 seconds after launch, Glenn offered his first words about the view from his porthole: “This is Friendship 7. Can see clear back; a big cloud pattern way back across towards the Cape. Beautiful sight.” Three hours later, at the beginning of his third orbit, Glenn photographed this panoramic view of Florida from the Georgia border (right, under clouds) to just north of Cape Canaveral. His American homeland was 162 miles (260 kilometers) below. “I have the Cape in sight down there,” he noted to mission controllers. “It looks real fine from up here. I can see the whole state of Florida just laid out like on a map. Beautiful.” Image via NASA Bottom line: John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962. His space capsule was called Friendship 7. 6/12/2006 • American History On the morning of February 20, 1962, millions of Americans collectively held their breath as the world’s newest pioneer swept across the threshold of one of man’s last frontiers.

Roughly a hundred miles above their heads, astronaut John Glenn sat comfortably in the weightless environment of a 9 1/2-by-6-foot space capsule he called Friendship 7. Within these close quarters he worked through his flight plan and completed an array of technical and medical tests as he cruised through the heavens. It offered the leg room of a Volkswagen ‘Beetle’ and the aesthetics of a garbage can, but the small capsule commanded an extraordinary view of the planet Earth. Through the craft’s window, Glenn saw thick, puffy, white clouds blanketing much of southern Africa and the Indian Ocean. The Atlas Mountains of North Africa stood like proud, majestic statues on a planet that seemed as timeless as the stars that twinkled an eternity away. Dust storms blew across the deserts, and smoke from brush fires swirled into the atmosphere. ‘Oh, that view is tremendous,’ Glenn remarked over the radio to capsule communicator (Capcom) Alan Shepard, his fellow Mercury astronaut stationed back at mission control. As Friendship 7 passed over the Indian Ocean, Glenn witnessed his first sunset from space, a panorama of beautiful, brilliant colors.

Before the conclusion of that historic day, he would witness a total of four sunsets–three while in earth orbit, and the fourth from the deck of his recovery ship. For Glenn, the historic voyage of Friendship 7 remains as vivid today as if it had happened yesterday. People still ask him what it felt like to be the first American to orbit the earth. And often he thinks of his capsule’s breathtaking liftoff and those subtle, emotionally empowering sunrises and sunsets. ‘Here on earth you see a sunrise, it’s golden, it’s orange,’ Glenn recalled recently. ‘When you’re in space, and you’re coming around on a sunset or sunrise, where the light comes to you refracted through the earth’s atmosphere and back out into space, to the space craft that refraction has the same glowing color for all the colors of the spectrum . . . .’ There have been more than ten thousand sunsets since his orbital flight helped launch the United States deeper into a space race with the former Soviet Union.

And although Glenn’s political career as a Democratic senator from Ohio has kept him in the public eye, he is remembered by many of his countrymen as the first American to circle the planet and as the affable spokesman for the seven Mercury astronauts. Glenn marvels at how people all over the world still recall the heady days of the Mercury program. ‘It’s been heartwarming in some respects and it’s amazing in others,’ he says. ‘I don’t go around all day, saying ‘Don’t you want to hear about my space experience?’ Quite the opposite. But if the kids come to the office here, or if I run into them on the subway and they want to stop a minute, I don’t hesitate to stop and talk. I think it’s good; I think that’s a duty we [former astronauts] have.’ By the time Glenn and Friendship 7 burst through the earth’s atmosphere, the United States was already a distant second in space technology, behind the Soviet Union. The race to begin to explore the universe had unofficially begun on October 4, 1957, when the Soviets launched Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite.

‘I think Sputnik sort of forced the hand,’ explains Gene Kranz, who served as Project Mercury’s assistant flight director and section chief for flight control operations. ‘I think we found ourselves an embarrassing second in space and related technologies. We were second best, and Americans generally don’t like that kind of a role.’ President Dwight D. Eisenhower, however, was more concerned about the country’s security than its self-esteem. With the Soviets having the rocket power to propel a satellite into space, he wondered how long it would be before they were capable of launching a nuclear bomb toward the United States. In response to this perceived Soviet threat, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) into being on July 29, 1958. One of the first assignments given to the new agency was to launch a man into space and return him safely to earth, and that fall, Project Mercury was created to fulfill that daunting task. On April 9, 1959, NASA formally introduced to the world the seven test pilots who would, it was hoped, carry the U.S. banner to the heavens.

Selected were: Lieutenant Commanders Malcolm Scott Carpenter, Walter Marty Schirra, and Alan B. Shepard of the Navy; Air Force captains Leroy Gordon Cooper, Virgil I. ‘Gus’ Grissom, and Donald ‘Deke’ Slayton; and Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn of the Marine Corps. Born on July 18, 1921, Glenn was the oldest of the group, arguably the most celebrated, and an obvious candidate for Mercury from the beginning. A veteran of World War II and the Korean War, Glenn had flown 149 combat missions and been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross five times. After completing test-pilot school in 1954, Glenn went to work testing the fastest jets America could produce. His rsum sparkled even more in 1957 after he set a transcontinental speed record for the first flight to average supersonic speed (seven hundred miles per hour) from Los Angeles to New York. From their first public appearance together, the Mercury 7 astronauts, as they came to be known, were celebrities and heroes.

‘We were at first extremely surprised when we were announced to the whole world, and how crazy everybody went over the whole thing,’ laughs Cooper. But enthusiasm for the project was one thing; making it a success was more difficult. There were countless variables and unknowns to conquer: weightlessness, a new capsule, an inconsistent booster in the Atlas rocket, and of course, the awesome specter of space. ‘To put it bluntly, we didn’t know what we were doing in many areas of the Mercury program and we were fortunate our country understood there was no achievement without risk,’ admits Kranz. As the Mercury project evolved and moved into the next decade, NASA found a crucial supporter in President John F. Kennedy. Just weeks into his term, however, the Soviets scored another technological coup. On April 2, 1961, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly in space, orbiting the earth once during his one hour, forty-eight minute flight, which came just three months after a U.S. Redstone rocket had carried a chimp named Ham into space and brought him safely back.

On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard made America’s first, manned suborbital voyage, flying for 15 minutes and reaching an altitude of 116 miles. Compared to Gagarin’s flight around the world, Shepard’s 302-mile mission was a mere stopover between ports of call. It was, however, a major boost to America’s pride. While Gagarin flew under a cloak of secrecy, Shepard’s flight was broadcast live on television. The early success of the Mercury Program spurred President Kennedy to inspire NASA to reach for new heights. On May 25, he grabbed the world’s attention when he told Congress that the nation’s new goal was to complete a manned trip to the moon before the end of the decade. For the first time in its space duel with the Soviet Union, the United States, which had so far amassed just 15 minutes of manned space-flight time, had set the stakes. Gene Kranz recalls with a laugh that ‘. . . we thought he was crazy,’ but the astronauts also felt energized to meet the new challenge. NASA turned its efforts up a notch that summer.

In July, Gus Grissom replicated Shepard’s short suborbital flight, and by the fall, NASA was ready to attempt putting a spacecraft in orbit. As a final test in preparation for a manned trip, a chimpanzee named Enos was launched into space in late November. The craft carrying Enos completed two orbits before landing safely back on earth, after which NASA announced that on December 20 of that year, John Glenn would make the first American orbital flight. Before taking this next giant leap toward the moon, however, NASA had to ensure that an astronaut could function in a weightless environment for an extended period of time. Some scientists feared that without proper equipment and technology, a space traveler’s eyeballs would bulge out of their sockets and change shape. This, in turn, would distort his vision and preclude his flying the craft should any of the automatic controls fail. Also, scientists feared that fluid in the inner ear might float freely into the air and that Glenn would become so nauseated and disoriented that he would be unable to perform his tasks. In addition to its concerns about Glenn’s adaptability to weightlessness, NASA worried about the inconsistent Atlas booster, the huge rocket designed to push Glenn’s ship into orbit.

Two of the five unmanned test firings conducted on the 93-foot Atlas prior to Glenn’s mission had failed. The memory of one of those failures has remained vivid for Glenn. It was a night test, he remembers, ‘and it was very dramatic–searchlights and a beautiful starlit night. Not a cloud in the sky. They light this thing, and up she goes . . . . At about 27,000 feet it blew up right over our heads. It looked like an atom bomb went off right there.’ To add to the mounting tension, poor weather and mechanical problems with the rocket forced NASA to’scrub’ Glenn’s scheduled mission nine times. Finally, on February 20, 1962, seven months after America’s last manned flight, John Glenn would don his bulky pressure suit for what would be the final time. Rising out of bed in his ‘ready room’ at NASA’s space craft center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 2:20 a.m., he checked the weather report, which indicated a fifty percent chance of rain. Glenn showered and shaved and had the customary astronaut’s breakfast of steak and eggs, before taking a pre-flight physical.

If the many weeks of anticipation weighed on Glenn’s mind, his body did not reflect it. Four hours later, Glenn made the short ride to the rocket’s launch site. When he emerged from the transfer van, Launch Pad 14 resembled a movie set as giant floodlights waved streams of milky white upon the rocket and the surrounding area. The huge Atlas was a glowing silver sword in the coal black night. ‘My flight was–it was like you staged it,’ recalls Glenn. ‘It was Hollywoodesque.’ Two hours before his scheduled liftoff, Glenn squeezed into the cramped cabin of Friendship 7, perched atop the Atlas rocket. The sky was clearing, and just before 8:00 a.m. technicians began the laborious task of bolting on the entry hatch of the craft. Sealed inside the capsule, Glenn felt truly alone. The minutes ticked by slowly as he calmly and methodically worked through his preflight checklist. Finally, Glenn heard the flight team give his mission an ‘A-OK’ over the radio.

With all systems functioning normally, Glenn acknowledged his preparedness with a firm ‘ready.’ As the final countdown to liftoff began, backup pilot Scott Carpenter’s voice crackled over Glenn’s radio: ‘Godspeed, John Glenn.’ At 9:47 a.m. the rocket’s three engines ignited. Friendship 7 began to vibrate as the mighty Atlas built up 350,000 pounds of thrust, the force needed to lift Glenn and his craft into orbit. For a few interminable seconds, the massive rocket held steady. Finally, its hold-down clamps released, and the Atlas slowly, agonizingly clutched and pulled at the bright blue sky. ‘We are under way,’ Glenn reported to Mercury Control. Minutes later, Glenn was a hundred miles above the earth and traveling at more than 17,000 miles per hour. With all systems running smoothly during his initial orbit, Control advised him that he ‘had a go’ for at least seven turns around the earth. Unlike Soviet Cosmonaut Gherman Titov, who had experienced nausea and dizziness during his recent 16-orbit flight, Glenn worked and ate without difficulty.

As he gazed earthward through the capsule’s window, he noted how fragile the planet appeared, shielded from the unforgiving vacuum of space by a film of atmosphere that seemed no more dense than an eggshell. Back at Mercury Control, the flight team, headed by Chris Kraft and Kranz, kept their focus on more practical considerations. After Glenn’s first orbit, Control had received a telemetry signal indicating that his capsule’s heat shield might be loose. If that signal was correct, Glenn and the spacecraft would disintegrate in the three-thousand-degree heat generated by reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. There seemed to be only one solution to this potentially tragic problem. If Glenn refrained from jettisoning the ship’s retro-rocket package, a normal procedure just before reentry, its titanium straps might hold the shield in place. Control advised Glenn of their decision to end his flight and ordered him to plan for reentry after his third orbit. Unwilling to burden Glenn with concern over the possible heat-shield malfunction, Control offered no explanation for their decision until he was safely home. Glenn was suspicious, but all parts of Friendship 7 seemed to him to be working properly so he concerned himself only with what was within his control.

Before long, the capsule splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean. ‘When I started back in through the atmosphere, when the straps that held the retropack on burned off, one of them popped up in front of the window,’ Glenn remembers. ‘I thought the retropack or the heat shield was breaking up. It was a real fireball. But the heat shield worked fine.’ Glenn’s flight was a public relations boon for the U.S. space program. He returned to a hero’s welcome and a wildly emotional New York City ticker-tape parade. The United States had made a significant step forward in its competition with the Soviet Union and its quest for the moon. Few people knew, however, that the nation’s most famous pilot would never again fly in space. As Glenn recalls, ‘President Kennedy had passed word to NASA, and I didn’t know this for some years, that I was not to be used again on a flight, at least for a while. You can’t believe being the focal point of that kind of attention when we came back.

I don’t know if he was concerned about political fallout, or what.’ Glenn was disappointed that he never again traveled into space, but declares,’I don’t feel cheated because I had such a tremendous flight.’ Three years after the confetti and streamers had blown away, John Glenn left NASA and, relegating space flight to a vivid memory, moved into another public arena. Politics is a high-profile world in which Glenn’s clean-cut image and amiable personality easily endeared him to his constituents and to the public in general. In 1974, he was elected to the U.S. Senate by his home state of Ohio, an office he has held through three more terms. Despite the passage of more than a quarter century, Glenn easily recalls the innocent joy he found in those wondrous space sunsets. He has never lost the ability to draw inspiration from his experiences and to channel it into a positive outlook. ‘I think its an attitude,’ he says, of maintaining his inner youth. ‘I think kids have an expectation of what’s going to happen tomorrow.

I think some people are able to maintain that whole thing, this expectation about what they’re looking forward to.’ Not surprisingly, Senator Glenn can easily find his time consumed by the business of Capitol Hill. But when a red-headed, freckle-faced teenager with blue eyes ablaze asks Glenn to describe a launch or splashdown, the senator from Ohio again becomes one of America’s first astronauts, as he relives that historic day in 1962 when time stood still and three space sunsets blazed like campfires of a thousand sparkling colors. This article was written by Bryan Ethier and originally published in October 1997 issue of American History Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today! Friendship 7 - Home On February 20, 1962, John H. Glenn, Jr., became the first American to orbit Earth. An Atlas launch vehicle propelled a Mercury spacecraft into Earth orbit and enabled Glenn to circle Earth three times. The flight lasted a total of 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds before the Friendship 7 spacecraft splashed down in the ocean. Most major systems worked smoothly, and the flight was a great success as an engineering feat.

This Mercury-Atlas (MA) 6 mission also reestablished NASA and the U.S. as a strong contender in the space race with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had launched the worlds first spacecraft, Sputnik, in October 1957 and had also sent the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space on April 1961. NASA responded by sending the first American, Alan Shepard, into space in May 1961, but Shepards flight was only a suborbital lob, whereas Gagarin had orbited Earth. With Glenns orbital mission, NASA was finally able to pull back even with the Soviets. The flight was the culmination of a tremendous amount of work in a relatively short time. On October 7, 1958, the newly formed NASA had announced Project Mercury, its first major undertaking. The objectives were threefold: to place a piloted spacecraft into orbital flight around Earth, observe human performance in such conditions, and recover the human and the spacecraft safely. Despite Shepards successful first flight, many questions had still remained about how Americans could survive and function in space.

The success of the Friendship 7 mission enabled NASA to accelerate further its efforts with Project Mercury. During less than five years, from Mercurys start to finish, more than two million people from government and industry pooled their skills and experience to produce and manage the Nations first six piloted spaceflights. Mercury flights demonstrated that people could survive in microgravity for over a day without deterioration of normal physiological functions. Mercury also set the stage for Projects Gemini and Apollo during the 1960s and all later U.S. human spaceflight activities. Thus, the MA-6 mission of Friendship 7 was both a capstone event and the beginning of many more achievements in human spaceflight for NASA. Stephen J. Garber BBC ON THIS DAY | 20 | 1962: US spaceman orbits Earth 1962: US spaceman orbits Earth The first American to orbit the Earth has landed safely in the Atlantic Ocean.

Marine Lieutenant John Glenn, 40, travelled about 81,000 miles (more than 130,000km) as he circled the globe three times at more than 17,000 mph (27,000kph). Lieutenant Glenn controlled nearly two of the orbits himself after reporting "minor difficulties" with the automatic altitude control system as he completed the third circuit - the maximum anticipated. Messages from the astronaut were transmitted by radio stations across the United States and United Kingdom and his progress was monitored by 18 ground stations around the world. As he re-entered the atmosphere after his four-hour and 56-minute journey Lieutenant Glenn said: "Boy, that was a real fireball." His spacecraft, Friendship Seven, landed at 2040 GMT 240 miles north-west of Puerto Rico, where it was picked up by the US destroyer Noa. Altogether, 24 American ships were ready to pick up the astronaut and his craft from various locations across the globe. We are really proud of you President Kennedy In Context John Glenn became an overnight celebrity. He was promoted to the rank of colonel in 1964.

He went into politics and was a democrat senator for Ohio - his home state - for 24 years. He campaigned on space and defence issues in particular. It was his interest in space medicine that led him to persuade Nasa to send him into space at the age of 77 in November 1998. He completed the nine-day mission on the space shuttle with another six astronauts to become the oldest man in space. Over 250,000 people - including President Clinton - gathered at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida to watch the launch. Stories From 20 Feb Godspeed Godspeed, John Glenn: 1st American in Orbit Reflects on NASA's Space Legacy By Denise Chow, SPACE.com Staff Writer | February 17, 2012 07:00am ET MORE Astronaut John Glenn photographed in space by an automatic sequence motion picture camera during his historic orbital flight on "Friendship 7" on Feb. 20, 1962. Credit: NASA Fifty years ago, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, and his nearly five-hour expedition ushered in a new era of spaceflight for the nation. On Feb.

20, 1962, Glenn piloted NASA's Mercury capsule , known as Friendship 7, three times around Earth, reaching a maximum altitude of about 162 miles (261 kilometers). Glenn's orbital milestone matched the groundbreaking achievement of the rival Soviet Union, which launched cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit 10 months earlier. On Monday (Feb. 20), NASA will salute 50 years of Americans in orbit by honoring Glenn and his Friendship 7 flight. Since that fateful journey, the agency landed astronauts on the moon, flew 135 space shuttle flights and constructed a $100 billion laboratory in space, among many other accomplishments. Following the Friendship 7 flight, Glenn was heralded as an American hero , and five decades later, his orbital journey still resonates with the public. "Fifty years seems like two weeks more than 50 years," Glenn, who will turn 91 on July 18, told SPACE.com. "I think the duration that people have been interested in that, the first flights back there, have been somewhat of a surprise.

We're so used to the new and the untried in this country, whether it is the equivalent in automobiles or whatever it is, that I think we've gotten used to that. So it has been a little bit of a surprise that attention has been and keeps coming back to some of those very early flights." [ Photos: John Glenn's Space Legacy ] The social and political climate Part of this fascination is because the success of Glenn's Friendship 7 flight altered the tide in the fierce Cold War competition between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. The Soviets launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, in October 1957, four years later, Gagarin became the first person to reach space (and the first to orbit Earth) on April 12, 1961. "The Soviets at that time were claiming technical superiority to the United States because they could do rocket flights and ours were blowing up on the pad too often," Glenn said. "So it was against that backdrop and their claims of superiority in rocketry that we came into the program. It was something that we felt at that time, so there was a big effort to get us back on top again." On Feb.

20, 1962, John Glenn rode the Friendship 7 capsule into space, the first time an American orbited the Earth. In this image, Glenn enters the capsule with assistance from technicians. Credit: NASA After years of Soviet dominance , Glenn's success in orbit evened the playing field and reinvigorated America's space program, said John Logsdon, space policy expert and professor emeritus at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "It was a time of head-on-head superpower rivalries for global leadership," Logsdon told SPACE.com. "Everyone was recovering from World War II and it was a very tense time in U.S.-Soviet relations. Having something positive happen, particularly in an area where the Soviet Union looked like it was ahead, was politically very important." [ Giant Leaps: Top Milestones of Human Spaceflight ] The flight also captivated the public, and after returning to Earth, Glenn received a hero's welcome in New York City. "It was the first of the ticker-tape parades through Manhattan," Logsdon said. "Everyone was glued to their television sets.

It was new, exciting and adventurous." It was after seeing Glenn's New York City parade that Logsdon himself was inspired to pursue a career related to space. "I was in transition back to graduate school that spring and going into political science, and I remember very vividly seeing Colonel Glenn parade through Manhattan on March 1, 1962. And it was that more than Kennedy's speech or Sputnik that got me interested in space." This image shows the launch of Friendship 7, the first American manned orbital space flight. With astronaut John Glenn aboard, the Mercury-Atlas rocket is launched from Pad 14, February 20, 1962. Credit: NASA The original seven Glenn, who was born in Cambridge, Ohio, in 1921, was one of NASA's original seven astronauts — the so-called Mercury Seven. The trials and tribulations of those involved in Project Mercury were later immortalized by author Tom Wolfe in "The Right Stuff." Selected in 1959 for the agency's first astronaut class, Glenn beat out a pool of 508 skilled, high-flying pilots and military men.

While fellow Mercury Seven astronauts Alan Shepard and Virgil (Gus) Grissom flew to space before Glenn, the maximum altitude for both their flights put them only in the suborbital reaches. On that February day in 1962, Glenn circled the Earth three times in the Friendship 7 capsule before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. He became a pioneer for orbital spaceflight, and NASA would continue to push the boundaries of exploration. And after years of Americans in orbit, Glenn hopes to see that tradition continue. "I see exploration going two directions: one is macro, which is out to Mars or wherever we're going out into space and back," Glenn said. "But to me, wherever we go we should try to maximize the research return of the capabilities we are developing. And that is what develops the support for the program. It does more good for people right here on Earth and does more to support the program for the long term than anything else we could do." For instance, more emphasis should be put on the research capabilities of the International Space Station , he added. "To me, we have never really exploited our ability in low-Earth orbit," Glenn said. "The International Space Station is the most unique laboratory ever built by human beings.

It cost us over $100 billion and about 18 years to get it to the condition that it is in. We should be working on ways to do the research that makes the whole program doubly beneficial in addition to just seeing how far we can go and keep someone alive and bring him back." Life after Project Mercury Glenn left NASA in 1964 and entered into business and politics. He was elected to the United States Senate, representing his native Ohio as a Democrat, and served from 1974 to 1999. "Glenn's space career is only one facet of his life," Logsdon said. "He was a very productive senator and he made his mark on American society in a number of ways." Throughout his tenure, Glenn remained a fervent supporter of NASA and a strong voice for the American space program. [ 50 Years of Presidential Visions for Space Exploration ] And in 1998, at age 77, Glenn flew to space again on the shuttle Discovery's STS-95 mission. After spending almost nine days in space, Glenn became the world's oldest astronaut, a title he still holds.

Shortly before his return to space, Glenn announced the creation of the John Glenn Institute (now the John Glenn School of Public Affairs) at Ohio State University in Columbus. The school featured a special exhibit about the Friendship 7 flight on campus and will lead a series of spaceflight forums and panels to mark the 50th anniversary. "John Glenn is, quite simply, an extraordinary American patriot," E. Gordon Gee, president of Ohio State University, said in a statement. "He is a man of boundless courage, limitless optimism and unswerving honor. I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to celebrate his tremendous achievements and his important leadership at Ohio State. He is one of this university’s — and this nation’s — greatest treasures." The school is also hosting a gala dinner Monday to honor Glenn and his achievements. Former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, who commanded the space shuttle Endeavour's final flight, will speak at the event. The seven crew members in training for the STS-95 mission aboard Discovery pose for photographers prior to participating in a training session at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Pictured, from the left, are Pedro Duque, Curtis Brown, Chiaki Nauto-Mukai, then-U.S. Sen. John H.

Glenn Jr. (D.-Ohio), Stephen Robinson, Steven Lindsey and Scott Parazynski. Credit: NASA NASA is also holding special events to mark the occasion. Today (Feb. 17) at 10 a.m. EST, NASA chief Charles Bolden and Kennedy Space Center director Bob Cabana will host a special program on NASA Television with Glenn and fellow Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter. Three months after Glenn's Friendship 7 flight, Carpenter became the second American in orbit on May 24, 1962. A news conference will be held at 3 p.m. EST at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Cape Canaveral, Fla., in the Mercury Mission Control exhibit. This event will be broadcast on NASA TV. On Saturday (Feb. 18), Glenn and Carpenter will participate in a ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex honoring those who made Project Mercury possible. Cabana, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and astronaut Steve Robinson, who flew with Glenn on Discovery's STS-95 mission in 1998 will speak at the event. On Monday (Feb. 20) at 1:30 p.m.

EST, Glenn and NASA administrator Charles Bolden will speak live with the crew aboard the International Space Station. On March 2, Glenn will deliver the keynote address at a special event, called "Celebrating John Glenn's Legacy: 50 Years of Americans in Orbit," hosted by NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The agency's Glenn Research Center is named for the astronaut. SPACE.com contributor Robert Pearlman, editor of the website collectSPACE.com , contributed to this report. You can follow SPACE.com staff writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow . Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook . Editor's Recommendations An American orbits earth - Feb 20, 1962 - HISTORY.com An American orbits earth Publisher A+E Networks From Cape Canaveral, Florida, John Hershel Glenn Jr. is successfully launched into space aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first orbital flight by an American astronaut. Glenn, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, was among the seven men chosen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1959 to become America’s first astronauts.

A decorated pilot, he flew nearly 150 combat missions during World War II and the Korean War. In 1957, he made the first nonstop supersonic flight across the United States, flying from Los Angeles to New York in three hours and 23 minutes. Glenn was preceded in space by two Americans, Alan B. Shepard Jr. and Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, and two Soviets, Yuri A. Gagarin and Gherman S. Titov. In April 1961, Gagarin was the first man in space, and his spacecraft Vostok 1 made a full orbit before returning to Earth. Less than one month later, Shepard was launched into space aboard Freedom 7 on a suborbital flight. In July, Grissom made another brief suborbital flight aboard Liberty Bell 7. In August, with the Americans still having failed to make an orbital flight, the Russians sprinted further ahead in the space race when Titov spent more than 25 hours in space aboard Vostok 2, making 17 orbits. As a technological power, the United States was looking very much second-rate compared with its Cold War adversary.

If the Americans wanted to dispel this notion, they needed a multi-orbital flight before another Soviet space advance arrived. It was with this responsibility in mind that John Glenn lifted off from the launch pad at Cape Canaveral at 9:47 a.m. on February 20, 1962. Some 100,000 spectators watched on the ground nearby and millions more saw it on television. After separating from its launching rocket, the bell-shaped Friendship 7 capsule entered into an orbit around Earth at a speed of about 17,500 miles per hour. Smoothing into orbit, Glenn radioed back, “Capsule is turning around. Oh, that view is tremendous.” During Friendship 7‘s first orbit, Glenn noticed what he described as small, glowing fireflies drifting by the capsule’s tiny window. It was some time later that NASA mission control determined that the sparks were crystallized water vapor released by the capsule’s air-conditioning system. Before the end of the first orbit, a more serious problem occurred when Friendship 7‘s automatic control system began to malfunction, sending the capsule into erratic movements. At the end of the orbit, Glenn switched to manual control and regained command of the craft.

Toward the end of Glenn’s third and last orbit, mission control received a mechanical signal from the spacecraft indicating that the heat shield on the base of the capsule was possibly loose. Traveling at its immense speed, the capsule would be incinerated if the shield failed to absorb and dissipate the extremely high reentry temperatures. It was decided that the craft’s retrorockets, usually jettisoned before reentry, would be left on in order to better secure the heat shield. Less than a minute later, Friendship 7 slammed into Earth’s atmosphere. During Glenn’s fiery descent back to Earth, the straps holding the retrorockets gave way and flapped violently by his window as a shroud of ions caused by excessive friction enveloped the spacecraft, causing Glenn to lose radio contact with mission control. As mission control anxiously waited for the resumption of radio transmissions that would indicate Glenn’s survival, he watched flaming chunks of retrorocket fly by his window. After four minutes of radio silence, Glenn’s voice crackled through loudspeakers at mission control, and Friendship 7 splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.

He was picked up by the USS destroyer Noa, and his first words upon stepping out of the capsule and onto the deck of the Noa were, “It was hot in there.” He had spent nearly five hours in space. Glenn was hailed as a national hero, and on February 23 President John F. Kennedy visited him at Cape Canaveral. He later addressed Congress and was given a ticker-tape parade in New York City. Out of a reluctance to risk the life of an astronaut as popular as Glenn, NASA essentially grounded the “Clean Marine” in the years after his historic flight. Frustrated with this uncharacteristic lack of activity, Glenn turned to politics and in 1964 announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate from his home state of Ohio and formally left NASA. Later that year, however, he withdrew his Senate bid after seriously injuring his inner ear in a fall. In 1970, following a stint as a Royal Crown Cola executive, he ran for the Senate again but lost the Democratic nomination to Howard Metzenbaum. Four years later, he defeated Metzenbaum, won the general election, and went on to win reelection three times.

In 1984, he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president. In early 1998, NASA announced it had approved Glenn to serve as a payload specialist on the space shuttle Discovery. On October 29, 1998, nearly four decades after his famous orbital flight, the 77-year-old Glenn became the oldest human ever to travel in space. During the nine-day mission, he served as part of a NASA study on health problems associated with aging. In 1999, he retired from his U.S. Senate seat after four consecutive terms in office, a record for the state of Ohio. Related Videos

Question: What was the name of the craft in which John Glenn first orbited the Earth in 1962?
Answer: FRIENDSHIP 7